Hall of Fame Feature | Dominique Bouchard
10/18/2018 5:31:00 PM | General, Women's Swimming and Diving
Her career at Mizzou led her all way to the Olympic Games
From Canada, to Missouri, to Rio, and back to Canada, Dominique Bouchard had a career athletes dream about.
From her first senior national championship at 13, to the NCAA Championships, to the 2016 Olympic Games, Bouchard became one of the most decorated collegiate athletes to walk through the halls of the University of Missouri.
Despite her illustrious career, to the youngest inductee in the 2018 University of Missouri Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame class, the honor came as a complete surprise to Bouchard.
"I have been getting a lot of fake calls, so I didn't answer. When Jim Sterk left a message, I picked it up thinking he was saying congratulations for getting into medical school. I was really shocked because I finished my NCAA career in 2013 but I didn't retire (from swimming) until 2017," Bouchard said. "I had just been out of the sport for a year and usually they wait a few years before inducting someone."
While Missouri might seem an unusual destination for the North Bay, Ontario, native, Bouchard fell in love with Mizzou during her official visit to the University.
"Mizzou felt like home. I'm from a small town and it felt similar. The support for the student-athletes was amazing and all the athletes were treated equally," Bouchard said.
Bouchard came to Missouri in 2010 and made an immediate impact that propelled her through her collegiate career. She became a national name with NCAA runner-up honors in the 200 backstroke as a sophomore in 2011, then placed third a year later.
She closed out her illustrious career as a senior in 2013 with a second-place showing in the 200 backstroke at the NCAA Championships, with her finals time of 1:50.06 standing as the seventh fastest time in history, breaking her own school record. That race is one Bouchard will never forget.
"There's quite a few, but that was probably my personal favorite moment," Bouchard said.
As a favorite team moment however, she identified watching her teammates win the 200 freestyle relay at the 2012 Big 12 Conference Championships as the most memorable.
While her collegiate career as a Tiger ended on a high note, Bouchard continued to excel in competition as a post grad. Training at Mizzou while attending graduate school, she qualified for the Canada's 2014 Pan Pacific Championship team in 2014, where she finished fifth in the 100 backstroke and sixth in the 200 backstroke.
A year later, she earned a silver medal in the 200 backstroke at the 2015 Pan American Games and made her first World Championships team, eventually placing sixth in the 200 backstroke.
Her stellar 2015 extended to 2016, where Bouchard represented Canada at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.
In 2017, Bouchard decided it was time to retire from the sport.
"I think I did my job in bringing backstroke back to the forefront of Canadian swimming," Bouchard said. "I gave everything I had to the sport. Maybe I didn't have the glamorous career I would have liked but I think it all worked out for the best."
While in school, Bouchard pursued two bachelor's degrees in Biology and Psychology, followed by a Master's degree in Health Administration. She excelled in the classroom just as much as she did in the pool, earning CoSIDA Academic All-District honors, while also being named academic all-conference three times. She is now continuing her academics at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine pursing family medicine with a certificate in sports medicine. She has even considering doing physical medicine and going into the rehabilitation path of the medical field.
Bouchard hopes to be remembered by Mizzou fans as a leader of the program, someone who came in and made strides to help boost the program to what it is now.
"My class helped the program make a lot of strides when we came in in 2009. I think we definitely boosted the moral of the team. Just leading the team into being more nationally recognized and recruiting other really fast swimmers. We helped at the start of the upswing of Mizzou swimming."
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The Mizzou Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony for the 2018 class will be held this Friday at the Stoney Creek Inn beginning at 5:30 p.m. Tickets to the event are still on sale and can be purchased by clicking here.
